Adam Ant
2003 16hh Bay Gelding
This boy is BIG all over and give an impression of being much taller than his 16 hands. Very much a Cleveland Bay type with a 195cm girth, great bone, wide chest and hips. He was very calm and easy to handle straight off the transport truck and was excellent to load and float for the trip home to Bredbo. Patient while we measured, photoed and drenched I think he is going to be a strong, steady trail horse for someone.
1/02/10
Ok - to give you some idea of the scale of this boy here he is during his assesment session. I am 5'10 and no "slip of a girl" LOL
Adam had his first experience of Kalimbah Training on Thursday when I did his basic assesment. His is certainly easy to catch and led out of the paddock with another horse easily. He had to wait while I spent about 45min working Cooper and got quite impatient about the arrangement with lots of head shaking and hole digging. He ties solid though and never pulled back on the rope - even when I threw a rock at his butt to stop him pawing. He picked up the lunge work really quickly and responded well to the release cue. I use an active body position to drive - arms open, body parralel to the horse and then a passive position to cue them to stop and turn in (arms down, head down, turn my body side on to the horses shoulder. He did have a charge around and one pigroot (which he was firmly informed was not on the agenda) but showed nice smooth gaits - walk, trot and canter no pace. He responed well to the rope doing ground work and ended up pretty much joined up when being led around.
He is a love sponge and Tom, my 14yo had a great time watching him turn himself inside out when scratched in just the right spot. All round I am really happy with him - considering he has been OTT for 2 years and apparently has not done anything in that time. He is calm and alert - def not your dead quiet type but should make a great trail horse.
24/02/10
I am calling Adam my "bi polar" horse at the moment because he seems to be a completely different horse depending which side you are working him on.
Left rein (anti clockwise) he is calm and balanced, is starting to do some nice transitions and responds well to the release. Right rein (clockwise) he charges around, ears back, props and pulls back. The change is very clear and when you change straight from right rein (agro horse) back to left rein (calm horse) it can take 1 circle for the agro "personality" to go away. In general handling he is very good, easy to catch, is learning some personal space and ties up well. I don't think there is a mean bone in his body but his size means that I will want him responding calmly and willingly in all situations before we progress to ridden work. Just another paddock shot of him here - I will try and get Tom to take an action shot on the weekend.
02/03/10
Adam's groundwork has been progressing in a very one sided fashion with the "good Adam" side continuing to improve while the "bad Adam" side has not really changed at all. I was seriously starting to consider whether I would continue with him in the Kalimbah training program as in addition to his "agro" behaviour on the lunge he is also very aggressive in the paddock and actually put Roman over a fence today :(
Today I saddled him to work and started with some flexing work in the bridle. Thank heavens a friend gave me an extra large stock bridle a few years ago as even this was on the last hole to fit him!
In everything - handling, saddling, bridling, he is more reactive on the off "bad" side. He only took a little longer to understand what I wanted in the flex on his bad side which was probably a good sign of what was to come. The start of his lunge work was the same as before - calm and balanced on the left rein, charging, pigrooting and propping on the right. I realised how much he was over reacting to any movement on the bad side so almost just "thought really really hard" about what I wanted him to do and not lift my hand or flick the rope at all. Phew - we got one circle of walk! Quick - stop - lots and lots of praise. Turn the other way - 2 circles of walk - stop - lots of praise. Back on the bad side - again using the barest of signals - TWO circles of walk. We continued in this way untill he could acutally do a few trot / walk transitions without turning into "Evil Adam". At the end of the session he was very relaxed and as pleased with himself as I was with him :)
Here he is managing to make my 17inch stock saddle look like a pony pad!
Please see our Horse Training Services for training costs and contact us if you would like more information about Adam.
